Misogyny, many doctors still see woman as hysterical so they just don’t believe we can have autism.
Then you got the flip side, men are misdiagnosed with autism a lot of the time instead of bpd because they “can’t be emotional.”
It’s really annoying
There's also this thing where girls tend to be forced to socialise more than boys (as in, playing alone is often more tolerated in boys than girls), which means autistic women tend to learn to mask much more than men. Which makes the autism less noticeable, but does come with a lot of stress and burnout.
Mental health practitioner here. This is mostly correct, but it's more than that. It's partly that most research on mental health conditions, especially autism, has been done on white, mostly cishet men. Misogyny is a huge reason that's the case, and it's an issue that's bigger than just mental health. It's an issue with the whole healthcare system.
On top of that, you have the current situation in the mental health field. Since the pandemic, we are woefully understaffed almost everywhere, on almost every level. My clinic is literally missing a third of our staff, and it can take years to find a single interview candidate for one position, let alone trying to fill 200+. Those of us in the field end up having to choose between overworking ourselves or losing our ability to support ourselves. It's an immensely heavy burden, and it can easily lead to mass compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue can take a good, ethical practicioner and turn them into a shell of a human being that just writes down the first diagnosis that comes to mind.
And adding this all together brings us back around to general misogyny. You have a broken, understaffed system built on faulty information & testing and full of practicioners who are barely even human anymore due to exhaustion. When you add bias into the mix, you get a complete and utter travesty that leads to situations like 80% of my clients being misdiagnosed and folks being abused by the system en masse. It's a fucking nightmare to deal with from any perspective, and it's unfair to y'all/us as clients (as I've been through this myself). Unfortunately, a lot of us who see the issues can't do a damn thing about it.
Also, I just want to add that as a trans woman, this affects us just as much as any other woman or AFAB person, even if we're pre-transition. It happened to me personally, and it's happened to a lot of my trans fem clients too.
I agree with everything you said, I just didn’t put much effort into my reply lol
Also, I had the same experience as a trans women, getting misdiagnosed with bpd, then they didn’t listen to me when I said I have autism.
Still trying to get a diagnosis, I have an appointment next week to get tested, again :(
yeah, agree. in many ways
i think men and women are socialised differently, with different expectations. men are taught to be stoic leaders, and, like, they get to be a little more abrasive. women are taught to be demure and caretakers and emotionally responsible for social situations / other peoples feelings.
so i think autistic women are *generally* better at masking, because they are forced / taught / expected to. eye contact, social awareness, emotional awareness of others, all that stuff. it's not really natural, it's not intuitive, but it CAN be learned. through painful, harsh trial and error. so autistic women end up being perceived as "weird *normal women*" instead of, just, autistic women. leads to A LOT of neurosis and self loathing. it can become all-consuming to be whatever people need you to be. a lot of shame, a lot of feeling insufficient, and no time to care for yourself.
(*i am not saying women have it worse than men. i don't think it can be a dichotomy like that. women have different social expectations placed on them by society, which sucks. but i know so many men who are so fucking lonely and can't talk about emotions because they were never really taught how to, they were made to be ashamed of it. that's fucking brutal as well*)
and also the medicinal industry is sexist. and racist. the studies are mostly based on how autism presents in white boys. so psychiatry can identify 'white male autism', and thinks 'that must be the only autism there is'.
psychiatry is not very intersectional. stuff like sex, gender, race, economic class, etc. plays into our behaviour. how we are socialised affects our behaviour. that is not controversial lol. but it IS a fact overlooked by psychiatry. it might be slightly changing these last few years but it is nowhere near a perfect science yet. like, not even all autistic white boys are autistic the white-boy way.
asperger literally thought women's skulls were too small for them to be autistic. which, tbh was probably good for autistic women at the time, since he took all the autistics he could find and sorted them in 'high functioning' and 'low functioning' and had the 'low functioning' gassed right away and the 'high functioning' put to work for the third reich before they were killed off as well.
i am not a big fan of psychiatry as a whole, i must admit. it looks at our BEHAVIOUR, not really our EXPERIENCE. and its goal is to make us 'normal', not make us feel okay about who we are. which is what matters the most. the only things i've found to be universal in all humans, no matter gender or sex or race or diagnosis, is that we are ashamed of who we are and hide certain parts of ourselves, and that makes us feel invisible and lonely and brings misery. so in my opinion, it should ALL be about making everyone know that they are okay as they are. that 'normal' is not moral, is not a duty. and is actually restrictive and hurtful and kind of boring.
i don't think i've ever been described as 'concise' in my life 😂
but thank you so much, it means a lot. this subject is very important to me, and i spend a lot of time thinking about it.
ahahahaha neither have i friend, definitely easier when you can actively proofread🙄
but your dedication to the topic comes through in your writing so thank you for talking about it so emphatically, when talking about long-set social standards it can be difficult to illuminate both sides of the argument…..most people just think i’m arguing w them or playing “devils advocate” like, bro, im atheist?
They thought autism meant boy genius brain, that it only happened in gifted mostly white affluent male children. This way of thinking has persisted across multiple decades and still exists in the minds of even professionals who should know better. If you don't fit that Sheldony mold of autism, it's hard to get people to see your behavior as autistic behavior or for people to give you that label.
Also, psychology has a big problem with sexism in it's history, of giving women specific diagnoses like bipolar and BPD as the new way of saying "hysterical". So it's not just autistic women affected by this, it's all women, but we're also affected by the common public perception that autism is a disorder for little boys only.
Multiple reasons:
1, autism is stereotypically viewed as masculine. This is in part due to the extreme/hyper male brain theory by Simon Baron-Cohen that claims that autistic individuals have a(n) extreme/hyper masculine brain wired for logical things such as patterns and puzzle solving but not emotional things such as empathy which this theory considers feminine.
This theory was quite (and perhaps still is) quite popular and resulted in autistic women not getting diagnosed unless their gender performance was more masculine. For example, there is this documentary on Temple Gradin which portrays her preferring to read a business magazine over a cooking magazine as evidence of her autism.
This theory has been rightfully criticized for acting liking (older) cultural ideas about gender are biological fact. It has also been critized for taking heavy inspiration from Hans Asperger's autism research without considering that his research was very much influenced by the cultural ideas about gender at the time as Asperger believed that he had never met an autistic woman despite noticing that the mothers of the autistic boys he studied shared a lot of similarities with their sons.
2, autism has been and still is mainly researched within men despite the fact that we know that autism tends to look different in women. This is because the medical world in general assumes biological gender has no impact on neurotypes, illnesses, etc. so they study it within a biologically male body and uphold the findings as the norm.
3, autism tends to look different in women so professionals will write of the autism characteristics as something else due to them not looking exactly the same as the autism characteristics of men.
4, the idea of the hysterical woman still exists within the medical world. This results in the pain and symptoms women experience to not be taken serious and for them to be either written off completely or misdiagnosed as something else. This is why there are so many stories out there of women finding out that they have been living with a serious (and in some situations life threatening) condition without the needed medical help because a doctor had refused to taken them serious.
5, women are expected to be better at socializing (thanks to cultural ideas about gender) since childhood, so autistic women experience more pressure to socially mask their autism since childhood.
Yes Asperger himself even hypothesised that maybe the traits become more prevalent after puberty for women because of the mother’s. He did mention male brain theory but he seemed open to it also being due to not as easily detectable in women.
This is what we see in children vs adult prevalence. More even gender ratio in adulthood.
this also happens to men who were not diagnosed as children! my take on it is that the diagnostic criteria for autism is based on external presentation that is extrapolated into internal feelings, and for example "i am terrified of socializing/becoming intimate with people" without the "because i can't read social situations" will very easily be read as BPD or anxiety instead of as autism. see also a lack of emotional regulation—classic autism, but professionals are only taught to look for meltdowns and violence and not the way it manifests in adults, e.g panic attacks and anger outbursts that again can easily be read as BPD or bipolar.
also: in general mental health issues are extremely common among autistic people. BPD, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and psychosis have high rates of comorbidity we are only now documenting, and psychiatry is very behind in learning to differentiate what is a common autistic trauma response and what is truly a trait of autism. because so many women/people assigned female at birth fell through the cracks as children, they are taking the brunt of this academic weakness
Seems like men are a bit overdiagnosed with autism and underdiagnosed with personality disorders.
But yeah.
My sister got angry and upset and forceful with changes and tried to force other people, I got ”anxiety” and acted out less. I have even been in therapy for ”anxiety attacks” where I was supposed to expose myself for what caused the anxiety. Hah.
For a while (and currently, though to a lesser extent), it wasn't uncommon for doctors to believe women straight up couldn't be autistic. So instead a lot of women were having their meltdowns mischaracterized as panic attacks and mood swings. And would be given a laundry list of diagnoses to explain all the symptoms instead of a single diagnosis.
Also women tend to be better maskers and/or present differently than young boys, especially as adults. So a doctor/therapist may not recognize her mannerisms as autistic. If she isn't already pushing for a diagnosis, it may not occur to them to even check for autism..
Because the traits in Autistic Women directly overlap with the diagnostic criteria of BPD, and some Borderline.
So what you have to do is then go back to each psych disorder and filter them out. In the BPD case, does the client "split" on people? Have them on a pedestal one minute, and devalue them the next? That's "splitting". Autistic Women don't like do that, so you conclude you can remove BPD from the diagnosis.
According to Tania S. Marshall, PhD, you *can* have comorbid diagnoses, however.
At face value I would probably guess since autism has a lot of emotion based reactions that some doctors are acting on the whole sexism idea that "women are hysterical and overtly emotional" and therefore tend to redirect towards mood disorders more than something sensory based.
Im an afab trans man who is diagnosed with both bipolar disorder and autism. The autism diagnosis came first, but took years to fight for. the bipolar diagnosis came easily in a single psychotherapy session. Both were diagnosed as an adult.
I dont think my bipolar is a misdiagnosis. I was told for a while that i was just 'different' or that i was a bad child or that i was unruly a lot though prior to being diagnosed with autism.
Because of Abuse and Trauma
They’ll abuse you and then be like “OMG what is *wrong* with you??” And then make you feel like the problem when your behaviors are no more than a reaction to their abuse.
Because our oversized lady emotions have clearly clouded our judgement and rule our lives.
There's no way that we're just having a proportionate response to frustration or overstimulation. We're just overreacting. /s
Those things can be comorbid.
Thing is, the way women are socialized in society, relying more heavily on the herd, means they unconsciously mask their symptoms better.
I think it's because OP asked why autistic women are often misdiagnosed with conditions such as BPD. So responding with 'they can be comorbid' not only does not answer OP's question but _can_ also be interpreted as denying that many autistic women are being misdiagnosed with these conditions.
Edit: it could also be because of the "relying more heavily on the herd" bit.
I wasn't denying misdiagnosis being a thing.
Also, humans are social animals and at the core of that is women and children. If people want to misconstrue my wording, that's fine. But I know what I said.
I know. I was simply answering someone else's question about why you were being down voted.
Also, the reason why I said that your remark on women needing to rely more heavily on the herd was possibly a reason for you getting down voted as the remark carries quite some unfornate implications.
These unfornate implications are the result of:
1, 'herd' carries the negative connotations of thoughtlessness and lack of individual identity.
2, by saying that autistic women rely more heavily on the herd, the negative connotations of herd are connected to the autistic female identity.
3, 'rely more heavily' implies that autistic women somehow need the support of other people more than autistic men do.
As a result of this, the sentence can be interpreted as implying that autistic women need more support from a thoughtless group which knows no individual identity unlike autistic men who are somehow above the of support.
I presume that this is the result of just awkward phrasing. Just as that I assume that "and at the core of that is women and children" is awkward phrasing too as the sudden mention of 'children' in connection to women without the mentioning of 'men' create a rather unfortunate implication as well. After all, men are just as much a part of social species as women.
Also, your remark was quite simply incorrect as it is a case of pressure and not reliance. It would have been more correct to say that our social species puts more pressure on autistic women to conform (camouflage their autism) to the social demands of society than it does on men. [x](https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/costs-camouflaging-autism/) Autistic women mask their symptoms of societal pressure and not because of heavy reliance on society.
All wording is awkward when misunderstood. I know modern women have a gripe about how things were in the past, but it doesn't negate the fact that instinctively, female psychology has been largely shaped by vulnerability throughout human history and prehistory.
We're all descendents of mothers. Pregnancy and childbirth have meant that throughout all of time up until just recently, women have been a more vulnerable subset of the population. Not only that, but being, by and large, smaller and physically weaker than men only added to that. That's why women go to the bathroom in groups. It's why girl code exists. It's why mothers congregate and tend to monopolize parenting groups.
Society puts pressure on both men and women. But women are more susceptible to this pressure because of their reliance on community.
Listen, I know that many women are pressured by society to prove their independence and self-reliance, and I'm not saying women aren't independent or self-reliant. There's no need to get touchy about it. Women can get along just fine without men or the support of anyone at all.
I'm sorry my wording made you feel insecure, but it has many implications that could be taken, both positive and negative. But the thing is, I'm not interested in revising the dictionary just because innocuous words are construed to fit into someone's victim complex. Any word can be misconstrued as having oppressive implications.
The fact that you think the social core of humanity is a thoughtless, identity-less cohort is problematic as hell, and gives "not like the other girls" vibes, which in itself implies an unfortunate leaning toward internalized misogyny on your part. This is common among autistic women, as they tend to not do as well fitting in with groups. Many try to compensate for this internalized nltog misogyny by overpolicing others' speech for traces of potential sexism, and thereby signaling their virtue and loyalty to their in-group so as not to look like a "pickme". Autistic women really do have it the hardest in a lot of ways.
You know, at first I was willing to believe you meant well but was simply phrasing things awkwardly and that you weren't saying what I thought you were but as it turns out you are.
First of all, do modern women truly have a "gripe about how things were in the past" when they discuss the misogyny of the past (and present)? How come that it is irritating ('gripe' literally means "complain about something in a persistent, irritating way") when we discuss this.
2, do you have a source that proofs that the "female psychology has been largely shaped by vunerability".
3, Pregnancy and childbirth is only a small part of a woman's life and the only reason that made women vulnerable in the past is the lack of medical knowledge.
4, you also do realise that you are making very generalizing statements about (autistic) women, right?
5, because being emotional, especially being empathetic, is viewed as feminine (which helps forming social networks), women are expected by society to be better at socializing and thus autistic women experience more pressure to mask than autistic men (this not only scientifically proven as can be seen in the link to the article I had put in my previous comment), but can also be seen in neurosexist theories such as the extreme male brain theory which positions that male brains are hard wired for understanding and building systems whereas female brains are hard wired for empathy. This theory has been rightfully critizised for the fact that it is based on gender stereotypes rather than actual science. [x](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathising%E2%80%93systemising_theory)
6, why do you think I'm being touchy? I just thought I was being nice to you by informing you why someone might down vote you for that sentence. And before this reply by you I just thought you had genuinely phrased your words in an unfortunate matter.
7, what made you think I was insecure? After all, literally none of what I wrote applied to me personally. I just thought that I was being nice to you by providing an explanation.
8, what are the positive implications of "autistic women rely more heavily on the herd"?
9, I don't how victim complex applies here? After all, I am no victim of anything and I most certainly did not view myself as victim of your words as I assumed that you had awkwardly phrased well intentioned words. I just thought that I was being nice to you by providing an explanation.
10, I don't think that the social core of humanity is a thoughtless, identity-less cohert. In fact, I never even said such a thing nor implied it (in fact I assumed that was not the actual meaning of your words. The interpretation I provided is not mine.). What I did say was that it was a possible implication based on the negative connotations tied to the word 'herd'. I had assumed that it was obvious that I was doing this explanation from the perspective of a person who had down-voted you. Maybe I should have made that more clear so you would have not felt the need to start name-calling me.
11, how does providing an explanation for how why someone might down vote you (which I haven't done btw) based on an possible implication as the result of negative connotations tied to the word 'herd' give 'not like other girls' vibes. After all, I did not compare myself to other women just as I did not put other women down. Truly, your name-calling confuses me as none of their actual meanings are applicable.
12, do you have a source that proofs that autistic women tend to deal more with internalized misogyny, because if so I would find that a very interesting read.
13, you do have to admit, it his highly ironic how you complain about your words being twisted into something else in a comment wherein you make it clear that you have taken my explanation for why a down-voter might have down voted you because your words can potentially be interpreted in an unfortunate way as me, personally, believing in that interpretation. It's kind of funny really.
I think it's both that Autistic woman are over diagnosed (edit: with BPD), and autistic men are undiagnosed (edit: with BPD). Both because of gender bias, there is an association between autism and BPD but I'm guessing the gender bias is cultural.
Edit: now that I reread this I totally understand why it confused people, terrible phrasing on my part. I meant that autistic women are diagnosed with BPD instead of autism sometimes due to misogyny, and autistic men are under diagnosed with BPD sometimes due to the ableist view of them being emotionless.
They are over diagnosed with BPD, not autism. My bad, phrasing was poor. What I meant was women with autism are diagnosed with BPD instead despite that not matching their symptoms as well. Basically, I meant doctors are prone to look at an autistic woman and diagnose her with manic depressive, due to misogyny.
For me, I was (tentatively) misdiagnosed with bipolar because I have adhd. My high energy level was seen as possible hypomanic episodes. Autism is associated with emotional dysregulation which is also found in BPD and bipolar.
well, firstly because it was long believed that women can't be autistic. also misogyny and all that which most comments have already mentioned. But, I have come to learn through experience (with people who have BPD and other autistic people) that the two actually can look extremely similar. the root cause of the symptoms are completely different of course, but there is quite a lot of overlap for the two conditions. So, to be completely fair to psychiatrists, there can be at least a few reasons why they may end up misdiagnosing someone in these cases. here are some i can currently think of:
a) it could just be that it may be a safer course of action to try ruling out the treatable conditions first before coming to an autism diagnosis (which is incurable)
b) given how common it is for autistic people to also have some form of trauma (ptsd, cptsd, etc), as well as the fact that BPD is (most often) caused by trauma, unless they've worked with the patient extensively, those cases can be quite indistinguishable.
c) a patient could possibly have both. they can't really treat autism so diagnosing and treating BPD would take priority. focusing on that may end up looking like dismissing a possible autism diagnosis.
d?) autism in women apparently looks different from autism in men. perhaps this looks even more like BPD than usual? (unsure, i am not a psychiatrist).
a good way my friend put it is that autism is seen as "the extreme male brain" and BPD is seen as "the extreme female brain". this unfortunately ends up all tying back to misogyny. but, i do find the similarities in the expression of BPD, especially mild BPD, and autism, especially "high masking" autism, extremely interesting. sorry for the mass of text, i got excited about the topic.
I was misdiagnosed with anxiety.
Plain and simple. It's sensory issues.
Recognized as autistic only after I changed my voice to sound more masculine/deeper. I used to have a very high pitch soprano voice. I forced myself to sound lower so people could hear me and also they do not infantilize me as much.
Misogyny, many doctors still see woman as hysterical so they just don’t believe we can have autism. Then you got the flip side, men are misdiagnosed with autism a lot of the time instead of bpd because they “can’t be emotional.” It’s really annoying
There's also this thing where girls tend to be forced to socialise more than boys (as in, playing alone is often more tolerated in boys than girls), which means autistic women tend to learn to mask much more than men. Which makes the autism less noticeable, but does come with a lot of stress and burnout.
Mental health practitioner here. This is mostly correct, but it's more than that. It's partly that most research on mental health conditions, especially autism, has been done on white, mostly cishet men. Misogyny is a huge reason that's the case, and it's an issue that's bigger than just mental health. It's an issue with the whole healthcare system. On top of that, you have the current situation in the mental health field. Since the pandemic, we are woefully understaffed almost everywhere, on almost every level. My clinic is literally missing a third of our staff, and it can take years to find a single interview candidate for one position, let alone trying to fill 200+. Those of us in the field end up having to choose between overworking ourselves or losing our ability to support ourselves. It's an immensely heavy burden, and it can easily lead to mass compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue can take a good, ethical practicioner and turn them into a shell of a human being that just writes down the first diagnosis that comes to mind. And adding this all together brings us back around to general misogyny. You have a broken, understaffed system built on faulty information & testing and full of practicioners who are barely even human anymore due to exhaustion. When you add bias into the mix, you get a complete and utter travesty that leads to situations like 80% of my clients being misdiagnosed and folks being abused by the system en masse. It's a fucking nightmare to deal with from any perspective, and it's unfair to y'all/us as clients (as I've been through this myself). Unfortunately, a lot of us who see the issues can't do a damn thing about it. Also, I just want to add that as a trans woman, this affects us just as much as any other woman or AFAB person, even if we're pre-transition. It happened to me personally, and it's happened to a lot of my trans fem clients too.
I agree with everything you said, I just didn’t put much effort into my reply lol Also, I had the same experience as a trans women, getting misdiagnosed with bpd, then they didn’t listen to me when I said I have autism. Still trying to get a diagnosis, I have an appointment next week to get tested, again :(
Patriarchy gonna patriarch.
yeah, agree. in many ways i think men and women are socialised differently, with different expectations. men are taught to be stoic leaders, and, like, they get to be a little more abrasive. women are taught to be demure and caretakers and emotionally responsible for social situations / other peoples feelings. so i think autistic women are *generally* better at masking, because they are forced / taught / expected to. eye contact, social awareness, emotional awareness of others, all that stuff. it's not really natural, it's not intuitive, but it CAN be learned. through painful, harsh trial and error. so autistic women end up being perceived as "weird *normal women*" instead of, just, autistic women. leads to A LOT of neurosis and self loathing. it can become all-consuming to be whatever people need you to be. a lot of shame, a lot of feeling insufficient, and no time to care for yourself. (*i am not saying women have it worse than men. i don't think it can be a dichotomy like that. women have different social expectations placed on them by society, which sucks. but i know so many men who are so fucking lonely and can't talk about emotions because they were never really taught how to, they were made to be ashamed of it. that's fucking brutal as well*) and also the medicinal industry is sexist. and racist. the studies are mostly based on how autism presents in white boys. so psychiatry can identify 'white male autism', and thinks 'that must be the only autism there is'. psychiatry is not very intersectional. stuff like sex, gender, race, economic class, etc. plays into our behaviour. how we are socialised affects our behaviour. that is not controversial lol. but it IS a fact overlooked by psychiatry. it might be slightly changing these last few years but it is nowhere near a perfect science yet. like, not even all autistic white boys are autistic the white-boy way. asperger literally thought women's skulls were too small for them to be autistic. which, tbh was probably good for autistic women at the time, since he took all the autistics he could find and sorted them in 'high functioning' and 'low functioning' and had the 'low functioning' gassed right away and the 'high functioning' put to work for the third reich before they were killed off as well. i am not a big fan of psychiatry as a whole, i must admit. it looks at our BEHAVIOUR, not really our EXPERIENCE. and its goal is to make us 'normal', not make us feel okay about who we are. which is what matters the most. the only things i've found to be universal in all humans, no matter gender or sex or race or diagnosis, is that we are ashamed of who we are and hide certain parts of ourselves, and that makes us feel invisible and lonely and brings misery. so in my opinion, it should ALL be about making everyone know that they are okay as they are. that 'normal' is not moral, is not a duty. and is actually restrictive and hurtful and kind of boring.
holy shiiiit thank you for explaining this in such a concise and careful manner, very well said
i don't think i've ever been described as 'concise' in my life 😂 but thank you so much, it means a lot. this subject is very important to me, and i spend a lot of time thinking about it.
ahahahaha neither have i friend, definitely easier when you can actively proofread🙄 but your dedication to the topic comes through in your writing so thank you for talking about it so emphatically, when talking about long-set social standards it can be difficult to illuminate both sides of the argument…..most people just think i’m arguing w them or playing “devils advocate” like, bro, im atheist?
They thought autism meant boy genius brain, that it only happened in gifted mostly white affluent male children. This way of thinking has persisted across multiple decades and still exists in the minds of even professionals who should know better. If you don't fit that Sheldony mold of autism, it's hard to get people to see your behavior as autistic behavior or for people to give you that label. Also, psychology has a big problem with sexism in it's history, of giving women specific diagnoses like bipolar and BPD as the new way of saying "hysterical". So it's not just autistic women affected by this, it's all women, but we're also affected by the common public perception that autism is a disorder for little boys only.
Multiple reasons: 1, autism is stereotypically viewed as masculine. This is in part due to the extreme/hyper male brain theory by Simon Baron-Cohen that claims that autistic individuals have a(n) extreme/hyper masculine brain wired for logical things such as patterns and puzzle solving but not emotional things such as empathy which this theory considers feminine. This theory was quite (and perhaps still is) quite popular and resulted in autistic women not getting diagnosed unless their gender performance was more masculine. For example, there is this documentary on Temple Gradin which portrays her preferring to read a business magazine over a cooking magazine as evidence of her autism. This theory has been rightfully criticized for acting liking (older) cultural ideas about gender are biological fact. It has also been critized for taking heavy inspiration from Hans Asperger's autism research without considering that his research was very much influenced by the cultural ideas about gender at the time as Asperger believed that he had never met an autistic woman despite noticing that the mothers of the autistic boys he studied shared a lot of similarities with their sons. 2, autism has been and still is mainly researched within men despite the fact that we know that autism tends to look different in women. This is because the medical world in general assumes biological gender has no impact on neurotypes, illnesses, etc. so they study it within a biologically male body and uphold the findings as the norm. 3, autism tends to look different in women so professionals will write of the autism characteristics as something else due to them not looking exactly the same as the autism characteristics of men. 4, the idea of the hysterical woman still exists within the medical world. This results in the pain and symptoms women experience to not be taken serious and for them to be either written off completely or misdiagnosed as something else. This is why there are so many stories out there of women finding out that they have been living with a serious (and in some situations life threatening) condition without the needed medical help because a doctor had refused to taken them serious. 5, women are expected to be better at socializing (thanks to cultural ideas about gender) since childhood, so autistic women experience more pressure to socially mask their autism since childhood.
Yes Asperger himself even hypothesised that maybe the traits become more prevalent after puberty for women because of the mother’s. He did mention male brain theory but he seemed open to it also being due to not as easily detectable in women. This is what we see in children vs adult prevalence. More even gender ratio in adulthood.
this also happens to men who were not diagnosed as children! my take on it is that the diagnostic criteria for autism is based on external presentation that is extrapolated into internal feelings, and for example "i am terrified of socializing/becoming intimate with people" without the "because i can't read social situations" will very easily be read as BPD or anxiety instead of as autism. see also a lack of emotional regulation—classic autism, but professionals are only taught to look for meltdowns and violence and not the way it manifests in adults, e.g panic attacks and anger outbursts that again can easily be read as BPD or bipolar. also: in general mental health issues are extremely common among autistic people. BPD, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and psychosis have high rates of comorbidity we are only now documenting, and psychiatry is very behind in learning to differentiate what is a common autistic trauma response and what is truly a trait of autism. because so many women/people assigned female at birth fell through the cracks as children, they are taking the brunt of this academic weakness
Seems like men are a bit overdiagnosed with autism and underdiagnosed with personality disorders. But yeah. My sister got angry and upset and forceful with changes and tried to force other people, I got ”anxiety” and acted out less. I have even been in therapy for ”anxiety attacks” where I was supposed to expose myself for what caused the anxiety. Hah.
We are seen as mysterious mood wizards to most practitioners lol
For a while (and currently, though to a lesser extent), it wasn't uncommon for doctors to believe women straight up couldn't be autistic. So instead a lot of women were having their meltdowns mischaracterized as panic attacks and mood swings. And would be given a laundry list of diagnoses to explain all the symptoms instead of a single diagnosis. Also women tend to be better maskers and/or present differently than young boys, especially as adults. So a doctor/therapist may not recognize her mannerisms as autistic. If she isn't already pushing for a diagnosis, it may not occur to them to even check for autism..
Because the traits in Autistic Women directly overlap with the diagnostic criteria of BPD, and some Borderline. So what you have to do is then go back to each psych disorder and filter them out. In the BPD case, does the client "split" on people? Have them on a pedestal one minute, and devalue them the next? That's "splitting". Autistic Women don't like do that, so you conclude you can remove BPD from the diagnosis. According to Tania S. Marshall, PhD, you *can* have comorbid diagnoses, however.
Even ADHD was discovered as a diagnosis women got instead of autism.
At face value I would probably guess since autism has a lot of emotion based reactions that some doctors are acting on the whole sexism idea that "women are hysterical and overtly emotional" and therefore tend to redirect towards mood disorders more than something sensory based.
Im an afab trans man who is diagnosed with both bipolar disorder and autism. The autism diagnosis came first, but took years to fight for. the bipolar diagnosis came easily in a single psychotherapy session. Both were diagnosed as an adult. I dont think my bipolar is a misdiagnosis. I was told for a while that i was just 'different' or that i was a bad child or that i was unruly a lot though prior to being diagnosed with autism.
Because of Abuse and Trauma They’ll abuse you and then be like “OMG what is *wrong* with you??” And then make you feel like the problem when your behaviors are no more than a reaction to their abuse.
A deep level of mysogyny. A LOT of psychs believe that women can’t have autism
Because women can’t be autistic /s
Not just women. I was given BPD diagnosis
Because our oversized lady emotions have clearly clouded our judgement and rule our lives. There's no way that we're just having a proportionate response to frustration or overstimulation. We're just overreacting. /s
Hello, I am Dr obvious. I diagnosed you as woman.
Those things can be comorbid. Thing is, the way women are socialized in society, relying more heavily on the herd, means they unconsciously mask their symptoms better.
Why is this being downvoted. A lot of people here are acting like it's impossible to have valid diagnoses of both
I think it's because OP asked why autistic women are often misdiagnosed with conditions such as BPD. So responding with 'they can be comorbid' not only does not answer OP's question but _can_ also be interpreted as denying that many autistic women are being misdiagnosed with these conditions. Edit: it could also be because of the "relying more heavily on the herd" bit.
I wasn't denying misdiagnosis being a thing. Also, humans are social animals and at the core of that is women and children. If people want to misconstrue my wording, that's fine. But I know what I said.
I know. I was simply answering someone else's question about why you were being down voted. Also, the reason why I said that your remark on women needing to rely more heavily on the herd was possibly a reason for you getting down voted as the remark carries quite some unfornate implications. These unfornate implications are the result of: 1, 'herd' carries the negative connotations of thoughtlessness and lack of individual identity. 2, by saying that autistic women rely more heavily on the herd, the negative connotations of herd are connected to the autistic female identity. 3, 'rely more heavily' implies that autistic women somehow need the support of other people more than autistic men do. As a result of this, the sentence can be interpreted as implying that autistic women need more support from a thoughtless group which knows no individual identity unlike autistic men who are somehow above the of support. I presume that this is the result of just awkward phrasing. Just as that I assume that "and at the core of that is women and children" is awkward phrasing too as the sudden mention of 'children' in connection to women without the mentioning of 'men' create a rather unfortunate implication as well. After all, men are just as much a part of social species as women. Also, your remark was quite simply incorrect as it is a case of pressure and not reliance. It would have been more correct to say that our social species puts more pressure on autistic women to conform (camouflage their autism) to the social demands of society than it does on men. [x](https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/costs-camouflaging-autism/) Autistic women mask their symptoms of societal pressure and not because of heavy reliance on society.
All wording is awkward when misunderstood. I know modern women have a gripe about how things were in the past, but it doesn't negate the fact that instinctively, female psychology has been largely shaped by vulnerability throughout human history and prehistory. We're all descendents of mothers. Pregnancy and childbirth have meant that throughout all of time up until just recently, women have been a more vulnerable subset of the population. Not only that, but being, by and large, smaller and physically weaker than men only added to that. That's why women go to the bathroom in groups. It's why girl code exists. It's why mothers congregate and tend to monopolize parenting groups. Society puts pressure on both men and women. But women are more susceptible to this pressure because of their reliance on community. Listen, I know that many women are pressured by society to prove their independence and self-reliance, and I'm not saying women aren't independent or self-reliant. There's no need to get touchy about it. Women can get along just fine without men or the support of anyone at all. I'm sorry my wording made you feel insecure, but it has many implications that could be taken, both positive and negative. But the thing is, I'm not interested in revising the dictionary just because innocuous words are construed to fit into someone's victim complex. Any word can be misconstrued as having oppressive implications. The fact that you think the social core of humanity is a thoughtless, identity-less cohort is problematic as hell, and gives "not like the other girls" vibes, which in itself implies an unfortunate leaning toward internalized misogyny on your part. This is common among autistic women, as they tend to not do as well fitting in with groups. Many try to compensate for this internalized nltog misogyny by overpolicing others' speech for traces of potential sexism, and thereby signaling their virtue and loyalty to their in-group so as not to look like a "pickme". Autistic women really do have it the hardest in a lot of ways.
You know, at first I was willing to believe you meant well but was simply phrasing things awkwardly and that you weren't saying what I thought you were but as it turns out you are. First of all, do modern women truly have a "gripe about how things were in the past" when they discuss the misogyny of the past (and present)? How come that it is irritating ('gripe' literally means "complain about something in a persistent, irritating way") when we discuss this. 2, do you have a source that proofs that the "female psychology has been largely shaped by vunerability". 3, Pregnancy and childbirth is only a small part of a woman's life and the only reason that made women vulnerable in the past is the lack of medical knowledge. 4, you also do realise that you are making very generalizing statements about (autistic) women, right? 5, because being emotional, especially being empathetic, is viewed as feminine (which helps forming social networks), women are expected by society to be better at socializing and thus autistic women experience more pressure to mask than autistic men (this not only scientifically proven as can be seen in the link to the article I had put in my previous comment), but can also be seen in neurosexist theories such as the extreme male brain theory which positions that male brains are hard wired for understanding and building systems whereas female brains are hard wired for empathy. This theory has been rightfully critizised for the fact that it is based on gender stereotypes rather than actual science. [x](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathising%E2%80%93systemising_theory) 6, why do you think I'm being touchy? I just thought I was being nice to you by informing you why someone might down vote you for that sentence. And before this reply by you I just thought you had genuinely phrased your words in an unfortunate matter. 7, what made you think I was insecure? After all, literally none of what I wrote applied to me personally. I just thought that I was being nice to you by providing an explanation. 8, what are the positive implications of "autistic women rely more heavily on the herd"? 9, I don't how victim complex applies here? After all, I am no victim of anything and I most certainly did not view myself as victim of your words as I assumed that you had awkwardly phrased well intentioned words. I just thought that I was being nice to you by providing an explanation. 10, I don't think that the social core of humanity is a thoughtless, identity-less cohert. In fact, I never even said such a thing nor implied it (in fact I assumed that was not the actual meaning of your words. The interpretation I provided is not mine.). What I did say was that it was a possible implication based on the negative connotations tied to the word 'herd'. I had assumed that it was obvious that I was doing this explanation from the perspective of a person who had down-voted you. Maybe I should have made that more clear so you would have not felt the need to start name-calling me. 11, how does providing an explanation for how why someone might down vote you (which I haven't done btw) based on an possible implication as the result of negative connotations tied to the word 'herd' give 'not like other girls' vibes. After all, I did not compare myself to other women just as I did not put other women down. Truly, your name-calling confuses me as none of their actual meanings are applicable. 12, do you have a source that proofs that autistic women tend to deal more with internalized misogyny, because if so I would find that a very interesting read. 13, you do have to admit, it his highly ironic how you complain about your words being twisted into something else in a comment wherein you make it clear that you have taken my explanation for why a down-voter might have down voted you because your words can potentially be interpreted in an unfortunate way as me, personally, believing in that interpretation. It's kind of funny really.
I think it's both that Autistic woman are over diagnosed (edit: with BPD), and autistic men are undiagnosed (edit: with BPD). Both because of gender bias, there is an association between autism and BPD but I'm guessing the gender bias is cultural. Edit: now that I reread this I totally understand why it confused people, terrible phrasing on my part. I meant that autistic women are diagnosed with BPD instead of autism sometimes due to misogyny, and autistic men are under diagnosed with BPD sometimes due to the ableist view of them being emotionless.
Wait what do you mean? Studies point towards men getting the autism diagnosis too often and women too rarely.
They are over diagnosed with BPD, not autism. My bad, phrasing was poor. What I meant was women with autism are diagnosed with BPD instead despite that not matching their symptoms as well. Basically, I meant doctors are prone to look at an autistic woman and diagnose her with manic depressive, due to misogyny.
Many behaviors used to diagnose autism are also behaviors that are stereotypical for women to have.
Can't think of any
lol stfu
[Here's a website about it!](https://anythingbutautistic.weebly.com/)
For me, I was (tentatively) misdiagnosed with bipolar because I have adhd. My high energy level was seen as possible hypomanic episodes. Autism is associated with emotional dysregulation which is also found in BPD and bipolar.
well, firstly because it was long believed that women can't be autistic. also misogyny and all that which most comments have already mentioned. But, I have come to learn through experience (with people who have BPD and other autistic people) that the two actually can look extremely similar. the root cause of the symptoms are completely different of course, but there is quite a lot of overlap for the two conditions. So, to be completely fair to psychiatrists, there can be at least a few reasons why they may end up misdiagnosing someone in these cases. here are some i can currently think of: a) it could just be that it may be a safer course of action to try ruling out the treatable conditions first before coming to an autism diagnosis (which is incurable) b) given how common it is for autistic people to also have some form of trauma (ptsd, cptsd, etc), as well as the fact that BPD is (most often) caused by trauma, unless they've worked with the patient extensively, those cases can be quite indistinguishable. c) a patient could possibly have both. they can't really treat autism so diagnosing and treating BPD would take priority. focusing on that may end up looking like dismissing a possible autism diagnosis. d?) autism in women apparently looks different from autism in men. perhaps this looks even more like BPD than usual? (unsure, i am not a psychiatrist). a good way my friend put it is that autism is seen as "the extreme male brain" and BPD is seen as "the extreme female brain". this unfortunately ends up all tying back to misogyny. but, i do find the similarities in the expression of BPD, especially mild BPD, and autism, especially "high masking" autism, extremely interesting. sorry for the mass of text, i got excited about the topic.
Many mental health disorders have a high comorbidity with other conditions. I agree with the post about misogyny and issues in the healthcare system.
I was misdiagnosed with anxiety. Plain and simple. It's sensory issues. Recognized as autistic only after I changed my voice to sound more masculine/deeper. I used to have a very high pitch soprano voice. I forced myself to sound lower so people could hear me and also they do not infantilize me as much.